What Love Really Is
by NikkiJP
Summary: Everytime he whispers it, a soft breath tickling his skin, Logan hurts. Logan hurts because he knows it's not true. He's never once meant it in his life.


**I'm back! A new story, this one is kind of sad :( Involves Kendall being a dick and Logan heart-broken! Warned you ;)**

* * *

Logan always wakes up the same.

A pair of muscled, pale arms circling his waist from behind. A slightly too big nose nuzzling his shoulder and a bunch of blond, shaggy hair tickling the back of his neck.

Kendall is everything Logan had ever wanted.

And he loves him to pieces. He's completely, utterly, madly head over heels in love with Kendall.

But he always wakes up the same.

He feels the soft flutter of Kendall's eyes opening against his neck.

A small kiss behind his ear and words. The same words over and over again.

"I love you, Logan."

Every time he whispers it, a soft breath tickling his skin, Logan hurts. Logan hurts because he knows it's a lie. He's never once meant it in his life.

But Logan tries not to think of that.

He turns around and gives Kendall his forced smile. So practiced no one will ever know it's fake.

Logan needs Kendall. That's why he always says it back. The same words, same letters, same syllables.

But Logan means them every time he says it.

* * *

In the beginning, Logan has no clue.

It started out with 'Practice ran out late' or 'Coach wanted to talk to me.'

Each of them things that were perfectly normal to happen when you play for a team like the Minnesota Wild. They weren't suspicious. Logan didn't see why they should have been.

Normally Kendall would ditch practice if it ran out late. So he could be home by the time Logan returned from the hospital. And when coach wanted to talk to him, he would call or text Logan to let him know he would be late. But calls or texts were rare lately.

Logan didn't even notice the change.

But when they turned into 'I'm going out with friends.' and 'Don't wait up for me.' , Logan knew something was up.

Kendall never goes out with friends and he always wants Logan to wait up. So Logan always does.

Logan isn't stupid. He's a doctor, a certified genius. He's ridiculously smart.

He's not dumb and certainly not blind.

Yet he refuses to see what's right in front of him.

In the end, he doesn't really have a choice.

It's after one of Kendall's hockey games. They have a dinner date with Logan's parents and he wants to know what's taking Kendall so long.

He goes to look for him in the locker rooms. One of his teammates walks out, a man names Dylan, and tells him Kendall is the only one left. He's in the showers.

But when Logan sneaks in as quiet as possible, ready to scare Kendall shitless, he hears Kendall's low whispers of affection. And an equal passionate response.

Dylan is wrong. Kendall isn't the only one at all.

He wants to turns around. But he can't. He sneaks further until he's right behind the wall of the shower.

He can make out the strong lines of Kendall's spine and shoulder blades. And a pair of hands exploring them.

Kendall is in the middle of a passionate lip-lock with one of his teammates.

A guy named Tyler, Logan remembers.

When Tyler goes down on his knees and takes Kendall in his mouth, Kendall whispers:

_"I love you."_

And it's never sounded so honest before.

But Logan goes back to the parking lot and waits for Kendall in the car. It takes him a half hour and when Kendall finally returns he grins and steals a sweet kiss from Logan's lips.

"You played great, Ken."

When Kendall smiles, Logan wonders if it's because of what he just said or because of the after glow of the events he just participated in.

"Thanks, Loges."

He takes Logan's hand in his and he has to keep in a loud 'HA!' and a snort when Kendall tells him:

"I love you, you know."

But he nods. And then they have dinner with Logan's parents and they are like, legitimately in love with Kendall.

And all of that when Kendall has never really loved Logan at all.

He looks at Tyler in a way he's never looked at Logan.

He moans Tyler's name like he's never moaned Logan's.

He tells Tyler he loves him in a way he's never told Logan.

Genuinely. Sincerely. Honestly.

For real. He means it when he tells Tyler.

And Logan hates him for that.

But when Kendall whispers those words, Logan whispers them right back.

No amount of hate can conquer the love he feels for Kendall. Even if it's not mutual.

* * *

Logan's and Kendall's life goes on.

Kendall still goes out with his friends and tells Logan not to wait up.

But this time, Logan follows.

He watches Kendall's Porsche from his SUV. He watches when he turns into a drive way, occupied by another expensive car.

He watches when Kendall rings the doorbell and a young guy clad in a red and green Minnesota Wild jersey opens. Kendall smiles.

No. He absolutely _glows_. And so does the guy.

_Tyler_

They hug and kiss and Logan wants to wipe that smile of his face.

It just hurts so much that he isn't the cause of that smile.

When Kendall enters, Logan really wants to turn the car around and go home. But he owns himself this. He needs to know if Kendall really feels for this Tyler. If it's a fling or if it's real love.

He _has _to know.

So instead of turning around, he leaves the car and makes his way to the large window that he knows is there.

What he sees, he doesn't expect at all.

The guy, Tyler and Kendall are cuddled up on the leather couch. The way Kendall's arms are wrapped around Tyler's slightly smaller form remind him of the relationship he and Kendall have. Or had.

And when he sees the show they're watching, Family Guy and Kendall's glass of soda on the mahogany coffee table, it tells him that, unlike one would expect of a liar, Kendall still stays the same.

He isn't pretending to be someone he's not.

He still has his childlike side that laughs for hours and hours with a joke on Family Guy.

He still has this responsable side that doesn't ever touch alcohol in his life. The result of a lost friend who was hit by a drunk driver.

In this whole, secret world Kendall still stayed the same Kendall he is when he comes home.

And that just seems to make it hurt even more.

Logan can feel a tear rolling down his cheek.

He wants to go in there. He wants to yell at Kendall that he isn't worth more than a whore, that he's nothing to Logan. That he's death to him.

But unlike Kendall, Logan's never really been one for lying.

He keeps watching the couple until they get lost in another lip-lock.

Kendall's hands caress Tyler's body and he looks at him like he's the best thing in the world.

Logan leaves as soon as the shirts come flying off.

He can't take it anymore.

He can't see how Kendall loves someone this much. He can't, so he leaves. He goes home.

Only this time, he doesn't wait up at all.

* * *

When Kendall and Logan fight, it's hard for Logan to hold all the information inside. But he knows how to contain himself. Knows that if he wants to keep Kendall, he has to shut up.

But sometimes, Logan snaps too.

He isn't perfect He isn't immortal. His heart can't be broken over and over again.

It'll be the death of him if he lets Kendall walk all over him again.

"I love you, Logan yet you never seem to appreciate that!"

Logan's jaw snaps shut. He keeps his comeback of Kendall being a selfish dick inside and just stares like he's never seen Kendall in his life.

Sometimes Logan has enough of Kendall's lies.

"You don't love me, Kendall."

For a heartbeat he thinks he sees Kendall panick, but it's gone as soon as it appears.

"What's that suppose to mean? Ofcourse I love you."

Logan shakes his head. Grown men don't cry in front of other grown men but he seriously considers breaking that unwritten rule.

"You don't love me and you never have."

His voice is quiet and he refuses to meet Kendall's eyes as he rages on.

"Logan, where in the world did you get that bullshit from? You know I lov-"

He doesn't get the chance to finfish that sentence. Logan knows it's rude to interrupt someone when they're speaking but he hears the faint sound of his heart breaking and he can't take that.

Not anymore.

"Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I'm blind? Because I'm not! I know everything and I saw everything! If you really love me, then who's the guy you're seeing behind my back? Or am I really just imagining things?"

Kendall's eyes nearly pop out of his head.

"Logan, I'm sorry."

Logan's neck starts hurting from the amount of head shaking he's done in the past half hour.

"If you really were sorry, you wouldn't fool me like that. I believed you, Kendall. I believed you when all you ever did to me was lie! If you were sorry, you would've let me go years ago."

He's going to tun around. He's going to leave and never come back. But Kendall's voice has never sounded so genuine before.

"I loved you once, I swear. But Tyler and I. When we met, I felt things I had never felt for you. I didn't want to lose you. And it was never my intention to make you feel unloved. Logan, you have to believe me."

Logan turns his back to the man he loves and makes his way to the bedroom where he throws his stuff in two suitcases.

When he returns to the livingroom, Kendall has his head buried in his hands. He doesn't even look up.

"I don't know what to believe anymore, Kendall. But I sure as hell hope you know that I love you."

Only this time, Kendall doesn't say anything back at all.

* * *

What love really is, what really makes you hurt and cry and ache deep inside,

is how love conquers your whole body, your life and your entire world.

Love can destroy a country, a nation and no one will care because love is beautiful, right?

Love is life and life is love.

Only, that's not true at all.

Love breaks and doesn't ever rebuild.

Love is pain.

* * *

Logan has enough money to get up and move on to a new hospital. A new house in a new city in a new state.

He never watches hockey anymore. He never looks at pictures, never reminisces anything.

He's believed Kendall's lies for six years of a one-sided marriage.

It never meant anything. The entire sentence.

Every single word.

It never meant anything at all.

He hates being alone. He hates waking up in a unfemilliar bed. Without muscled, pale arms circling his waist from behind. Without a slightly too big nose nuzzling his shoulder and without a bunch of blond, shaggy hair tickling the back of his neck.

He hates not hearing the soft whisper.

But his heart is whole again and that's what Logan is doing it for.

He won't be broken down again.

So what if Logan isn't loved. So what if he never was.

He survives in his cold apartment. With his new co-workers, in this new city in this new state.

He doesn't know if Kendall and Tyler are together for real now. If they finally love each other the way they Always wanted to.

Logan doesn't, will never know if Kendall ever really loved him at all.

And frankly, he doesn't care anymore.

Through childhood, through teenage years, through life in general, people learn how to love.

But Logan?

Logan learned how to life without it.


End file.
